Adelaide Fringe. Oily Rag Theatre. 17 Feb 2019
Charlotte appears across the lawns of MacKillop Park. She is of imposing proportions and attired in a strange period costume, a see through skirt showing legs in white bloomers from the front and a copious bustle behind. She opens a large book with bold hand-written contents and proceeds to read. Her voice wavers. She is clearly nervous. There is a considerable crowd around her; history lovers lured by the promise of strange creepy tales of yore.
Charlotte begins with Mary MacKillop, Australia’s first saint. She gives an abridged account of Mary and the Josephites, identifying herself as one whose life had been spring-boarded by her time in the Josephite Women’s refuge. Thence, she went into service and ended up marrying her master and rising in social standing, living here, in the “village” of Kensington. And thus, sustaining this character with a decidedly posh voice, she leads the group from point to point around the streets of historic Kensington.
From a script devised by Oily Rag’s Shannon Norfolk, she reads of the stench of tanneries and the sound of horse carriages. In 1879, the first horse tram left from Regent Street and took an hour to get to the city. The walking audience gathers around on the footpath, looking and imagining. There weren’t too many murders along the route but there were many tragedies. One was, amazingly, the local trapeze artist and acrobat who held regular performances for the neighbourhood but met with a strange ending. Then there were the publicans and their tales. People died early.
Charlotte places her audience, which on opening night included a small white dog, under the old original street lamp which towers preserved in Pioneer Park. She tells about the local doctors and the typhoid outbreaks from the creek. There’s an interesting scientific history in this neck of the woods, it turns out. And, who knew there was a “suicide corner” let alone why and how? But that’s enough of tantalising spoilers. The commentary is extensive and very well researched. Perhaps because of poor night-time light, nerves, or lack of rehearsal, some bits of narrative were a bit ragged on the opening night’s walk. One rather wished the performer, Heather Crawford, knew the material more intimately. But her voice is loud and clear and as the first night wore on, she relaxed into her role and engaged a little with members of the audience, always keeping the spirit of anachronism as tidy as possible.
This show is a brilliant idea and it was a hit before it opened. It only takes 20 odd walkers per night and most nights already are a sell-out. One imagines Oily Rag will develop the theme and just get better and better. It’s onto a good thing.
Samela Harris
3 ½ Stars
When: 17 to 27 Feb
Where: Mary MacKillop Park meeting place
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Adelaide Fringe. Holden Street Theatres. 13 Feb 2019
A British critic already has described Extinguished Things as “an achingly beautiful piece of theatre”. It is the perfect phrase and can’t be bettered.
Molly Taylor, she of the Love Letters to the Public Transport System which triumphed in Fringe 2018, now explores an insignificant corner of suburban Liverpool, a nondescript flat left suddenly empty after the death of its long-term occupants. Molly tells its story from a gently banal setting, a world of beige carpet and tired old lace curtains. Two standard lamps stand incongruously side by side, the only lights left in the house now that the light of life is gone.
There’s a box of vinyl records and a table with tea-makings. This poignantly prosaic set has been designed by Naomi Kuyck-Cohen. The play itself is directed by Jade Lewis with lighting by Zac Macro and sound by Miguel James, the slick team behind playwright Molly Taylor's productions.
Molly Taylor is a playwright of multi award-winning distinction. Her plays are like paeons to the artistry of the well-written word. Oh, how exquisitely she can turn a phrase or pierce the heart with a one-word profundity.
Her observations: “the drumbeat of pulse”; “the most wasted sensation - feeling alive”; "into the brain like a splinter”; “the imperfect outline” of their lives. Of the flat and its nondescript shards of 40 years of marriage, she gasps at “the cathedral of it all”.
The story line of Extinguished Things is simple. Molly once cat-sat for her neighbours, Al and Evie, and she still has the spare keys to their flat. Now they can never come home again. Molly simply can’t resist trespassing and exploring the silent echoes of their lives. And thus, she softly pokes around, she sits and reflects, makes a cup of tea, and she marvels at the kept things of their world, the minutiae of their lives. Oh, how briefly the flame of life is here to flicker. What’s it all about?
Extinguished Things is an existential wonderland and yet, in Molly’s narration, words and thoughts flow like reams of luscious silk and the audience sits spellbound. It is a richness, rare and sage.
Samela Harris
5 Stars
When: 13 Feb to 3 Mar
Where: Holden Street Theatres
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Joanne Hartstone, The Flanagan Collective & Gobbledigook Theatre, and Holden Street Theatres. Holden Street Theatres – The Sunken Garden. 17 Feb 2019
In Greek mythology, Eurydice has a chance to escape the underworld after succumbing to the bite of a viper. Her husband, Orpheus, ventures into Hades to retrieve her and all he has to do is lead the way and not look back at her until they reach the light of day. But look back he does and she vanishes.
In playwright Alexander Wright’s adaptation in verse, it’s all about the preamble. We begin with a spirited and rebellious Leni née Eurydice arguing with Mum about why a Superman costume isn’t appropriate on the first day of school. She grows up, sort of, and Aristaceus looms large in her life (in the myth, Ari was chasing her when she stepped on the viper).
Serena Monteghi was compelling playing an emotional Leni as a child, as a compulsive adolescent, and maturing with experience on a rocket rise and meteoric fall of love and love lost. She was foiled by Casey Jay Andrews standing in for all the other parts, and a male might have been a better choice. A bit of music and singing was welcome relief.
Together their energy strived to overcome the production and the script. The show was an unadvertised moved reading with text in hand, and thus was not really the world premiere the artists claimed. Wright’s rap-like poetry is overblown and repetitive. It’s a radio play; and on stage, it’s not necessary to say what you are actually watching the characters doing, but every second seemed bursting with words. I was looking at their scripts to see how much longer the show would be. Storytelling and acting were confused with Monteghi many times emoting Leni and simultaneously narrating about Leni. The Eurydice and Orpheus legend is tacked on at the end, and given what we have already seen, rather unnecessarily. Not even the seats were comfortable.
Hopefully, the show will be ready for the Edinburgh Fringe and thanks for trying it out on us.
David Grybowski
2 stars
When: 17 Feb to 16 Mar
Where: Holden Street Theatres – The Sunken Garden
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Soapi Improv. The Duke of Windsor Hotel – The Adelaide Room. 16 Feb 2019
My wife is a big fan of the British period pieces - bonnet dramas I call them. In play here is improvised shellacking of the classic TV series, Upstairs Downstairs, Downton Abbey and Gosford Park dealing with the increasingly archaic British aristocracy and their more down-to-earth staff in lovely country houses during the reign of Edward VII to after WWI.
My night was Episode 2, so a pamphlet was on my seat explaining what happened in Episode 1 which played the night before. After some audience suggestions on how to proceed, the cast made up the rest on the spot. For an hour. While extremely funny initially, a sort of routine sets in and the laughs taper off. Leader of the troupe, Eden Trebilco came off a bit strident and was the only player to initiate violence and the flinging of projectiles, which were swatted away by the rest of the cast. Curtis Shipley managed some moving moments which were welcome changes of pace. Paul Gordon and Kirsty Wigg were most like the real deal and Joshua Kapitza was a sweet performer and a great thinker on his feet. You sensed the edginess of nobody knowing what was going to happen next, with laughs about the plot line and Brechtian exposure of how it’s all done. Theme music was very helpful.
What Soapi Improv’s blurb doesn’t say is that they are producing three episodes – over three consecutive nights - making a continuous story, just like on TV, so they might have prepared the tragics to go to all three – an opportunity missed.
If you can’t see Episode 3 on 17 February, associate improvised entertainment shows, A Total Cop Out, Quest Time and Improvised Improv are also part of the Fringe.
David Grybowski
3 stars
When: 15 to 17 Feb
Where: The Duke of Windsor Hotel – The Adelaide Room
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au
Adelaide Fringe. Stamford Plaza Hotel. 16 Feb 2019
They have it down to a fine art. And so they should. It’s 20 years since the Faulties started touring the world with their high-energy interactive dinner show.
It’s a hoot.
They have braved a number of Fringe Festivals and are back again, this time in the Stamford Plaza where an incongruously elegant three-course dinner accompanies a thoroughly madcap show.
It is just a cast of three but they generate mayhem and hilarity while at the same time ensuring that everyone gets fed their proper three course meal; plus bread rolls, of course. Bread rolls make for heaven on a schtick and have the audience in hysterics at the general anarchy of the service. Professional wait staff glide discreetly through from time to time just to keep things tidy and streamlined.
This is not the Fawlty Towers TV script by John Cleese and Connie Booth. It is a faulty Fawlty performed by quick-witted impersonators. With a thematic plot line, they use their considerable improvisational skills to interact with audience members while recreating the spirit of that hopeless fictional guest house set in the English seaside town of Torquay. The cast astutely identifies key punters who will provide grist for the comic mill as they work the room very thoroughly, over and over. They are relentlessly vigorous. The show is alive with Manuel’s wild translation errors, Basil’s imperious bossiness and Sybil’s endless efforts to pour oil on the troubled waters of Basil’s bad behaviour. It is a well-conceived and well executed take-off, an homage if you will.
Audience members are kept on the edge of their seats but they are unthreatened, albeit on the night this critic attended, Manuel was so worried that Sybil would see one young man’s vividly tattooed arm that he fetched gaffer tape and wrapped the arm securely in a table napkin.
Interestingly, there are people who have never heard of Fawlty Towers who buy tickets to this show and they not only get the gags but say they also enjoy the air of love in the room.
Playing the Adelaide Fringe are Rob Langston, a very tall and impeccably English Basil who shamelessly bullies Manuel, fearlessly dives under tables, goose steps, and has crack- ups. Nicholas Richard is an hysterically convincing Manuel, all naiveté and hapless willingness. Rebecca Fortuna, in a perfectly terrible wig, plays prim Sybil, ever riding shotgun in the wake of her husband’s abominations. She’s a breath of sanity. Just a breath. The show is generally off the wall and deliciously crazy.
And, there’s an excellent bar.
Samela Harris
5 Stars
When: 16 Feb to 3 Mar
Where: Stamford Plaza Hotel
Bookings: adelaidefringe.com.au